Many marketers question the wisdom of using Google+ to market their website. Google’s social networking site was booming for a while, but the demand quickly disappeared. New stories by Stuff.co.nz, the New York times and Gigaom have all tried to address this trend. These stories suggest that the site is turning into a ghost town either due to poor design or a lack of demand.

I must confess that I questioned the wisdom of using Google+ as a marketing tool for a while. However, I have since started using it again for one reason: SEO.

SEO is the biggest  reason that I can think of to spend time using Google+. Used correctly, Google+ appears to be a major tool for improving SEO rankings, even if you sometimes feel like you are participating in a ghost town.

Many people try to improve their SEO by dropping a few links on their Google+ profile once in a while. If you aren’t going to invest in a social network, then expect to get zero results in return. Google+ is no exception. If you want to use Google+ to boost your SEO, then you should do the following:

1. Fill out your profile. This is one of the most overlooked aspects of SEO. If you want the links from your Google+ account to be relevant and have a high trustrank, then you need to make it look right. Fill out all your information as thoroughly as most people fill out their Facebook profiles. Tell people where you went to school, where you’ve worked and any other details. Of course, you should incorporate any target keywords, provided you aren’t stuffing them.
2. Link to sites you contribute to. Google+ allows you to link to the sites you contributed to in the sidebar. Many bloggers only include their own site, but I suggest linking to other authoritative sites in the same niche. However, be careful that you aren’t helping sites that are targeting the same keywords.
3. Get followers. You might expect that getting more followers will help you with your SEO rankings. Each of those followers is going to count as a link to your profile, which helps you improve your rankings. More followers are more people who could potentially share your content. Also, gaining followers has another value that you may not have thought of: personal search results. Your followers are likely to see your search results on the front page for many of the searches they conduct on Google. This can help you reach your followers through the search engines on a regular basis. Of course, you are going to get a lot more shares on the site if you find followers who are actually using the site regularly.
4. Engage and share. As with any social networking site, you will get out what you put in. Your followers are far more likely to use your site if you are going to actually put something into it. Take the time to share other people’s content as well as any other great resources you find.
5. Considering focusing on what you share. You may create a more relevant profile page if most of your shares are related to the theme you are optimizing for.
6. Encourage shares on your website. Getting others to share your posts is key to build your SEO. Getting shares from your followers is important, but you will probably get far more shares if you add a Google+ button on your own site.

Google+ can be invaluable to improving your SEO rankings. The trick is to make sure that you are putting in the time and energy to make your site pristine. Experts such as Aaron Wall and Neil Patel think that Google+ will have a huge impact in improving SEO rankings so you should probably take that into consideration.

Kalen Smith is an Internet entrepreneur, Internet marketing consultant and freelance writer. He is the founder of Online Rookies, where he shares the strategies of great Internet marketers. He is always looking to do interviews and help other marketers expand their networks.

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Give Your SEO a Boost With Google+ is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

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Businesses that want to do well need to know how to conduct an SEO audit. But to know how to conduct an SEO Audit they need to know first what SEO Audits are. SEO Audits are used to determine factors that may hindering a site from a search engine optimization perspective SEO Audits take into account visual determinants as well as text entries. If a site does not include rich and unique content it will not bring in large volumes of traffic, and will never achieve the coveted listing of number one on Google. SEO Audits can ensure a page is relevant and appropriate for search and will show the site owner or online marketing team what appropriate actions can be taken to improve the website.

As any webmaster or marketer knows, content is key and should be unique, relevant and rich on every single page on the website. Landing pages (the page a URL leads to) should be optimised with mid length keyword strings (three or four words in a phrase) to long keywords strings (five or six words in a phrase). Searching for high ranking keyword phrases and duplicating content on these pages will give a site owner a good idea of what not to do. These pages need to be unique and specific.  Having a writer to properly formulate a landing page works the best and dividing these pages by headlines will increase the traffic to the site.

Many websites reliant upon search engine optimisation generate revenue through hits and pay per click advertising. Using Google Adsense is the best approach to PPC and PPI advertising, but visitors do not want to be flooded with advertising and will avoid sites with too many ads. An ideal when it comes to Google Page Rank is to find a phrase that has less competition. This will allow a site to take a phrase when it is searched and make it a niche. The more traffic a site gets over time in association with a particular phrase the stronger it will be as time moves on. Also the relevancy of information has to do with how recently the last post was made. This will ensure a site stays at the top of the Google Page Rank.

An often overlooked part of an SEO Audit is the technical side. Using a program to move through a site to document any errors in HTML or Java will help the site owner as they are trying to improve their Page Rank. Site owners should know how to conduct an SEO Audit simply by turning off the JavaScript settings, CSS and cookies on their own home browsers to ensure there are no dead links on their page. Dead links on a site are a sure fire to lower a site’s authority and should be immediately addressed.

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SEO Audits is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

The Original Post is Located Here:SEO Audits

It is a known fact that with the increased number of video sharing sites, SEO companies and SEO consultants have found another avenue in driving traffic to their target website. Using video in your overall search engine optimisation campaign is one of the strategies that you could use in order to drive traffic to your website. Using videos as your advertising avenue would definitely increase your site visitor as every video sharing site is being visited by millions of users every day. One thing that you have to remember though is that there are a lot of videos being uploaded every day and it is important for your video to stand out in order to gain a considerable amount of traffic to your website. The following are some tips that could help you make an optimised video, one that can definitely help drive traffic to your website.

1. Be Creative in the Video Title – make your video title creative without losing focus on keywords and or relevance. It is important to use a catchy title for your website as this would be the first avenue for you to gain the attention and focus of your potential visitor amongst the different video recommendations posted in the video sharing site. However, it is also your duty not to disappoint the video sharing site user as it might cause you to gain dislikes or thumbs down.

2. Quality Video is Necessary – when creating the video makes sure that you are imparting either information or entertainment to your viewers. Quality video does not mean high definition quality but rather it means that your video must be meaningful and it should definitely be the video or information that your viewers are looking for.

3. Create Video Transcripts – although this is a tedious task creating a video transcript means adding text to your video, some video sharing sites do have a specific area for the video transcript, and if you are lucky such transcripts may be searchable and indexed by the search engines allowing you to incorporate the keywords that you need for your SEO campaign.

4. Include a video sitemap – there might come a time for you when you realize that you have uploaded a lot of videos, in order for search engines to easily locate your videos and for it to be easily indexed providing a video sitemap would be beneficial, after all you want your video to stand out among the other similar videos that were made.

5. Include Tags in your Videos – most video sharing sites allows tagging of videos, this is an opportunity for you to tag your video with relevant keywords for search engines to discover, thus you should not miss such opportunity.

6. Build links around your video – to increase the possibility of your video to be indexed by the search engines it is very important that you also conduct link building efforts to your videos, thus the normal link building strategies of directory submission, social bookmarking among others would apply.

7. Use social media – make your videos viral by sharing it through the different social media platforms, this way you could easily gain an audience to your website. In sharing your video however, it is important again to create catchy titles that would attract the interest of your social media friends.

Video SEO indeed have revolutionized the world of search engine optimisation and the world of online marketing in general this is why it is important to grab such opportunity in order for you to increase your websites’ presence online.

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Optimizing Your Video is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

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Interactive Copywriting vs. Traditional Copywriting–What’s the Real Difference, and Why Does it Matter?

Small businesses are in a unique position. They are often too small for big-time marketing, but still require advertising to stay afloat. The traditional media for advertising is finite and often too expensive for the entrepreneur who is crafting a new business. This means that most marketing must be done in person, by word of mouth and recommendations. These methods are time consuming and usually inconsistent in their success. This is why I have written this brief article on interactive copywriting as it relates to more traditional forms of ad writing. Interactive copywriting primarily operates on the medium of the world-wide web. This includes search engine ads (PPC), social media connections, and search engine optimization (SEO). The span of the web is as close to infinite as we can get to in the marketing world…and rent is cheap! Lets explore some of the differences between the two valid types of copywriting:

Two Strategies
The role of the traditional copywriter is a popular and necessary one. Responsible for a wide range of tasks including concept development and content for direct mail pieces, billboards, flyers, magazine advertisements and brochures, being a copywriter has expanded into a more diverse field than ever. The internet, however, has forced copywriters to branch out from their traditional roles of print advertising into designing website content, blogging and developing social media marketing advertising. Both traditional copywriting and interactive copywriting are in demand positions in the economy today, and both produce results, but they cover different media, meeting different needs.

The Role of the Interactive Copywriter
The term ‘interactive’ copywriter is a relatively new one, at least compared how long the traditional role of the copywriter has been around. Online copywriting goes hand in hand with interactive copywriting and includes many mediums such as intelligent, unique and honest web copy. Sales writing, website content, motivational brochures proactively bringing in business (instead of passively), are all examples of interactive copywriting. Online copy that ‘interacts’ with its audience is interactive; all other content is traditional. A good interactive copywriter is one that knows their target audience and writes in an appropriate language; use short paragraphs and visuals to keep their audience’s attention and puts themselves in the perspective of their audience.

The Difference
Traditional copywriting has set the tone for interactive copywriting, that’s for sure. You have a basic message, idea or initiative that requires thoughtful web content, which is what the traditional copywriter can execute. The interactive copywriter will take those ideas and elevate them to the next level however; making the ideas fly with unique, compelling content that your readers will not be able to turn away from. That’s the difference between the two and why interactive copywriting is in demand.

Interactive Copywriting is Unique
Have a unique way of describing products, businesses and people that no one around you seems to have the knack for? When you’re an interactive copywriter, you don’t just write what you want your audience to read about, but something exciting that will compel them into action (whether that means booking a private jet to Boston or buying that infomercial vacuum they can’t imagine living without). Being an interactive copywriter means that you can conceptualize big and small ideas, while not project is too large for you to handle. Your content is so motivating that you bring along a trail of followers with you, wanting to find out what you have to say next. You bring your readers along for the ride every step of the way, unlike traditional copywriting which tends to be less creative, innovative and entertaining.

Why Interactive Copywriting is in High Demand among Entrepreneurs
Minimal business allows for minimal advertising, which in term, leads to minimal business. Interactive copywriting, however, can be utilized effectively with an incredibly small budget. Let me highlight the word effectively. Keeping in mind that there is a direct correlation between website visits and unit sales, I’ll let you know that some of my clients have experienced 40-60% increases in website visits in the course of a year using these basic and inexpensive practices! Some wildly successful start up businesses, such as Google and Facebook, began as mere manipulations of these principles. The internet is wide-open for monetization, and regardless of your product/service, you can experience a high degree of exposure using interactive copywriting practices. While this method of marketing is relatively inexpensive, it does take time. Unless you are skilled already in things such as SEO and SMM (or at least know what those things mean!) then it is best to hire a professional as a contractor or to add to your staff in order to get started.

The most beautiful thing about the field of interactive copywriting is that there are as many different ways to do it as there are entrepreneurs to take up the task! The world of online marketing and copywriting is so new and unexplored that a creative mind and persistence are sure to pay dividends. Be creative!

Author Bio: Ethan S. writes on behalf of The Regan Group, a marketing firm that specializes in field marketing, and promotional marketing for business and organizations of all kinds.

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In Feb 2004, Mark Zuckerberg improved the way you use the internet once and for all by introducing the biggest social networking website that really needs no intro – Facebook.com. Before FB there were no “poking”, no following your ‘ex’ to find out if they are seeing somebody else, no Farmville or games , and today take a look at us! Say anything you like concerning the social networking giant but ignore it at your risk.

With more than 500 million active end users globally, ranking at the top of Facebook really should be a high priority for any individual seeking to optimize their web based business for search engines like Google and social media market. To become successful within the social media marketing scene you need to concentrate on the most significant market and they don’t occur any larger than Facebook.

So, listed below are our 5 best guidelines to help you to achieve the top position in Facebook internal search engine ranking

1. Make your content and profile ‘Publicly Available’

There has been plenty of scaremongering about the issues Facebook end users have experienced with their privacy configuration settings, but when it comes to your organization or your business, put them to the back of your head. The more folks who can easily see your profile, the better. This enables people to find your posts and discover it from the built-in FB search engine which may simply be the best thing.

2. Remember fondly the key components – Facebook Likes, Facebook Shares and Quantity of Common or mutual Friends

The number of different people who ‘like’ and talk about your articles can help you achieve greater rankings, in the same way when looking for individuals the amount of mutual buddies helps as well. The more of this conversation you will get going with other FB users, the better you will do in the FB Search positions.

3. Continue to keep up-to-date with developments

There isn’t any better destination to maintain up to date knowledge with what is happening at Facebook Towers than on the FB Blog site, check it frequently. Chances are things will change which will impact the way you optimize our pages on Facebook so watch out and you will be the first one to adapt accordingly.

4. Use what you are already aware

Utilizing keywords and phrases within the titles and URLs of your respective pages is essential to any sort of on page SEO and Facebook isn’t any different. Be sure you optimize the titles of your blog articles or group names just like you’d with almost every other web site or web page. When crafting a status, make sure it includes an acceptable quantity of keywords and alternatives (but do not go outrageous – try to write just like a normal user would!)

5. Continue to keep your content material fresh and new

Compared to almost every other optimization, timeliness is essential for you to get to the top in Facebook Search rankings. Huge focus is put on real-time up-dates so if you give a keyword-rich status and after that someone writes something equivalent moments after; chances are they’ll achieve greater rankings because their status is much more latest. You have to update your page consistently, with exciting, unique, top quality content to improve your odds of accomplishment within this oversaturated social media marketplace.

So there you have it, 5 guidelines to help you to achieve some of 500 million people that spend their days and nights on Facebook – enjoy, but please don’t get diverted!

About Author:

Aditi Datta is highly experienced in forum design, website design, search engine optimization and content writing. She is also a professional search engine optimizer working in a leading SEO company. She is extremely passionate about technology and covers all major topic related to technology.

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Five Smashing Facebook SEO Tips is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

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An old saying goes that always keep the hook cast in the pool and when you least expect it, you will find the catch. Similarly, an inspired person would find an opportunity to make money even from mundane things in life.

Cheesy though it sounds and with the in your face blurbs flashing online, it is true that there is money to be made online. There are opportunities galore on the net. Many promise instant rewards and yes there are quite a few who indulge in forgery. Yet, by using the net judiciously and with some smart moves, you might end up minting money, literally. The trick is to know who to trust and where to look.

Affiliate Marketing is one such opportunity that has knocked on several doors since Amazon made it immensely popular way back in 1996. After that many companies followed suit by introducing the affiliate marketing program for business inclined persons, while using the online options.

What in the World Wide Web is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is a part of online marketing for all the websites. In simple words an Affiliate Marketing Program pays or rewards the affiliate member (publisher in affiliate parlance) for promoting the business’s products and/or services on his/her site.

Websites offering Affiliate Marketing programs generally use the normal online advertising methods like SEO, e-mail marketing or pay per click advertising to promote their program and due to this it overlaps with other internet marketing methods.

As the industry caught up with the notion of promoting a business using paid reviews of products or services, affiliate marketing progressed in a variety of ways. The typical module works in this manner:

• The most common method is when the publisher is paid commission for allowing links from the publisher’s site to a site where the traffic is converted to sale of the product or service. Another method works indirectly as a referral, wherein the site allows the visitor to take action like guiding a visitor to a survey being conducted on the business site offering the affiliate program.
• Commissions are either paid as monetary compensation or as a reward point or as discounts on specific products or services. The possibilities here are vast and they depend upon how and what kind of business transaction you would prefer. The commissions are paid after actual sale i.e. when there is conversion of traffic, which is tracked by a special code provided to each affiliate member.

Affiliate for the New Media

The next level of web, Web 2.0 or as it is known today, New Media, has taken affiliate marketing to the next level. Due to the ease with which communication is possible, affiliate marketing can be done using mediums like blogs and social media. Currently, even the SEO community has taken a keen interest in affiliate marketing as it offers its clients a chance to convert qualitative traffic into a successful sale.

Tips for the Newbie

Now that you are armed with the prerequisite information about Affiliate Marketing, a few more guidelines will take you the next mile:

1)      The first rule is to opt only for those affiliate program that matter i.e. they should be relevant to your website.

2)      Guard against scams as many online businesses in a bid to make a quick buck end up short changing the affiliate members. Read the fine print of the agreement. Verify who is associated with the program and what kinds of ads are being promoted.

3)      Check out the kind of tools and tracking information the business is offering. Good affiliates provide access to real-time data in order to view the conversion rates, the actual sale and the commissions pouring in.

4)      At times high paying programs look attractive, yet they also involve high maintenance. Confirm what kind of banners and buttons are allowed within your site.

5)      Determine what type of affiliate marketing would you opt for. In pay per click programs, the commissions are low and in order to achieve the high ground you will have to ensure higher clicks for your ad. While the pay per lead and pay per sale kind offers comparatively higher payout, yet they do not generate as much traffic. It requires efforts on your behalf to generate genuine visitors and track the actual conversion rates.

The logical step for any person wanting to do online business is to seek information and that’s what the net is for. Go on a search spree!

Author Byline:

The author, Divya Rawat, holds a masters degree in communication and loves to read and write blogs. Currently she contributes blogs/articles via a SEO Company that has been offering Content Writing Services for the past six years.

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Affiliate Marketing – 5 Tips for a Novice is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

The Original Post is Located Here:Affiliate Marketing – 5 Tips for a Novice

Consistently adding productive keywords is the easiest way to increase the traffic your AdWords campaigns but how do you go about finding new keywords to use? You don’t have to look far, Google has a great keyword tool incorporated in the AdWords interface and I’d suggest making use of it a part of your habitual AdWords management practices.

You can find the keyword tool by clicking on tools and analysis within your AdWords dashboard and it’s pretty simple to use. What I would suggest doing is typing in some of your best converting keywords into the ‘keyword or phrase’ field to get the best results. Try not to mix up products when using the keyword tool, for the sake of organization. If you sell office furniture, do separate reports for office chairs, office desks, etc. Adding your website and category help to refine your keyword tool results to terms that will work with your website.

Under the advanced options you can choose what countries and languages you want to target, as well was what kind of devices you would want your ads to appear on. You might decide that people aren’t looking to buy office furniture on their cell phone, so to get the most accurate results for keyword competition you should probably just choose laptop and desktop computers. One more thing I’d suggest doing before performing the search is ticking the “phrase” box on the left side of your screen for more accurate query results. Hit the search button and you’ll see a list of potential keywords to add to your campaign.

The keywords are listed by competition level, approximate CPC, global monthly searches and local monthly searches.

The competition level is rated on a scale of 0-1 with 0-.33 being low, .34-.66 being medium and .67-1 being a highly competitive keyword. This column helps you find which keywords you might be able to add that aren’t being used by other advertisers in the same space as you. The global and local monthly searches just let you know how many people across the world and in your country are searching for those terms any given month. Finally, the approximate CPC is just the average price of a click across all ad positions from top to bottom.

For a more in depth look at how much traffic you could attract with your keywords, hop on over to the traffic estimator, which is located right under the keyword tool in the tools tab. Just copy in the keywords you picked up from the keyword tool and set your max CPC at $50. I know that sounds pretty crazy and chances are you aren’t going to want to spend that much per click, but it provides you with the most accurate click estimate because it almost guarantees that you’d be bidding for the top spot. Once you know what the top spot is worth, you can make pretty good estimates on how much you’d need to bid to drive more clicks to your website.

If you haven’t tried out the AdWords keyword tool, take the tips above and see what you can add to your campaigns today!

Trace Ronning is the social media coordinator for WordWatch. They’re dedicated to bringing small business owners more clicks for less cost on the AdWords network. Follow him on twitter @WordWatchPPC.

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Using the Google Keyword Tool is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

The Original Post is Located Here:Using the Google Keyword Tool

2011 can be called as Panda Year for webmasters, SEO Experts, SMO experts and affiliate marketers. I can imagine about serious webmasters, SEO Experts and SMO experts discussing problems in webmaster forums, SEO forums, and Programming forums after panda updates.

What are the changes made by Google in these panda updates? What are necessary steps one should follow to implement successful SEO campaign? Should we promote SMO for successful SEO campaign?

These are the only questions now days revolving all around. Even there are lot of things you should take care of when you are doing search engine optimization, but I have a positive and result oriented guess for you to launch a successful SEO campaign and that is benchmarking of competitors.

The term benchmarking is a management term, which is used to follow the competitor like the way he is implementing the business. If you are an SEO Expert offering affordable SEO services I will recommend you to benchmark your competitor. I have some steps for you to benchmark your competitor for a successful SEO campaign.

Find Your Competitors

You need to find your competitors before you can start benchmarking them. One of the best ways to find your competitors is to sort out the list of your keywords. Open Google and search with your first keyword. Save top 10 results into excel file. I can think that you have got my idea. In the same passion search all your keywords and pick the list of your competitors.

Analyze Your Competitors

Once you are finished with sorting the list, next step is to analyze them. Visit each and every site and see their contents, Meta tags, title tag, navigation structure, URL structure etc. You need to take care of all the onsite optimization rules your competitors are implementing. Once you are finished analyzing them, list down all of the difference you feel to your website and implement them step by step. Certainly I can understand it will take time but you should also understand that nothing can be gained without real hard work.

Keywords of Your Competitors

Keywords play an important role to drive more traffic for your website. It is not an easy job to find what keywords are used by your competitors but you can do this with little effort. Open each and every website you have in your list and see the source code of the website by pressing the CTRL+U if you are using Firefox or F4 if you are using internet explorer. You have to check the Meta keyword tag of your competitor; most of the webmasters implement important keywords there. You can now easily sort the important keywords from your competitor now.

Competitor Back Links

Since you have already a list of your competitors, it is a good time to see their inbound links and to analyze them. I have personally experienced this and have found that most of the competitors implement guest blogging strategy to have juicy inbound links. There are many online tools you can use to see their back links and backlinkwatch is one of them. Once you are finished with analyzing the inbound links for your competitors, sort the techniques implemented by them in excel file for your future plan.

Social Media Optimization

Social media optimization plays an important role to drive traffic for your website. Analyze your competitors whether they are implementing social media strategy or not? If they are really implementing this strategy then you should not forget to implement the same for your website. I can personally say that if you are offering affordable SEO services, you should not forget that social media optimization can be really beneficial for you to drive traffic for your website. Push your keywords up with social media optimization.

PPC

PPC stands for pay per click, and you need to take care of this as well. Try to analyze whether your competitors are using PPC ads or not. One thing to remember that you need to compete your competitors and you need to follow all the steps they are following to have the same business leads they are having. If your competitors are implementing PPC ads, you should not forget you need to as well.

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Benchmark Your Competitors for Successful SEO Campaign is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

The Original Post is Located Here:Benchmark Your Competitors for Successful SEO Campaign

Authors Bio:

IslaMarie is a marketing and SEO consultant for Red Evolution, working in London to Aberdeen she specialises in Social Media, Mocial Marketing and Integrated Specialisms.

It has always been said by digital marketeers and various forms of SEO company that ‘content is king’ however what does this term actually mean? Put simply content features in everything which digital marketers do from advertising to websites and social media. It is the ideal medium in which to not only communicate with potential consumers but to also learn from them.

The process of writing content for these sorts of channels has normally been a fairly relaxed one however it was announced a few weeks ago that the ASA are to extend their remit to cover all paid and un-paid content which means that marketers will have to consider what and how they write form now on.

What Is The ASA’s Role?

The ASA stands for the Advertising Standards Authority, it is their job to ensure that advertising and ,as of March, all marketing communications are not in infringement of set advertising regulations. Infringement of these regulations can cover a wide range of areas such as misleading terms or imagery to offending or incorrect messages and claims the list is endless. We all hear about it when an advert is withdrawn due to complaints to the ASA from BudLight’s Superbowl advertising (which has had to be withdrawn every year since 2006 due to complaints) to Loreal and their airbrushed images the resulting outrage of the public which typically goes hand in hand with this sort of action can destroy a companies brand reputation.

However the ASA‘s role is primarily a preventative one with the objective to stop offensive or misleading forms of advertising/messages reaching the public in the first place. However there is always going to be an area of overlap and uncertainty when it comes to advertising due to the fact that as with anything creative the ‘offensive nature’ of a advert, image or general communication is down to perception by the intended market. This in turn can cause problems like Bud Light have found with the Superbowl advertising which despite appealing to the target market offended a small selection of people result in complaints and the overall removal of the advert. Since the removal of the advert from television it has been viewed over 16 Million Times on YouTube and has started a trend with the brand which has since had each of its Superbowl adverts pulled due to complaints since 2006.

Change On The Horizon

However with the ASA set to extend its remit in March to cover paid and unpaid, on and offline media and communications marketers are going to have to be much more aware of the type of communications they have. For example until now many social media channels were free from the scrutiny of the strict eye of the ASA and so many of these communications would go unchecked and unplanned however with the danger that one flippant or offhand comment could get the company now reprimanded marketers are going to have to be a lot stricter with the type of communications which they have with consumers.

One of the key problems with marketing is the measurement of both input and outputs when it is not a figurative amount however with this in mind many marketeers are turning to an SEO company for help and guidance when it comes to monitoring all things online. These forms of companies specialise in making the most out of social media channels and communications, not only allowing you to monitor discussions relating to your brand but to also save and store the data to be used to inform future marketing campaigns.

One thing to always bear in mind with this sort of work however is that social media allows to to target JUST your target audience and so advertising which may be suitable and appeal online in a social community may not be so opening accepted on a wide society level such as on TV. Providing that you bear in mind the key point above there should be no reason why you cannot make your social and digital campaigns work for you.

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ASA’s Impact On Content and Marketing Practices is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

The Original Post is Located Here:ASA’s Impact On Content and Marketing Practices

Amazon offers its affiliates a host of widgets, links and banners that you can quickly install on your website. But to make the most of these features, you’ll want to take a few minutes to customize them. Here are a some of the things you can do. We’ll concentrate on widgets, specifically the My Favorites Widget and the Search Widget.

Select products individually.

If you want to make sure that only products you’d recommend to others show up on your website, you’ll want to look up and add each item manually rather than relying on a keyword search. You will also be able to add your own comments on each product if you want (see further down below). To search for a product when creating a My Favorites Widget, type the brand name or title in the “Search Amazon.com to find your products” search box and click “add product” when you see the item.

It shouldn’t be hard to come up with a list of products if you are familiar with the subject and know what’s out there. However this is a tedious process so it’s not for everybody.

Use a default keyword in the search box.

For the Search Widget, it can help to choose a default search term, such as your target keyword for the page it appears in. When you set a default search term, it means that the Search Widget will initially appear with a list of products based on that keyword. While on the Search Widget customization page, check the box for “Use default search term” and enter your keyword(s). Amazon will display results targeting that word or phrase.

Customize the color scheme.

Amazon gives you some control over the background and text colors of your widgets. Choose a theme that complements your website, not one that makes it stick out like a sore eye, and the adjust the colors if desired. To do this with the My Favorites Widget, select your products and then click “Next step” on the bottom right of the product list. Choose a design and theme under “Color and Design” and use the color buttons to make changes. By the way, I recommend using standard widget sizes under “Display Options.”

Add a short comment on each product.

Comments tell the visitor that you added each item personally and that you know what you are talking about. Too often we see Amazon affiliate banners and widgets that seem nothing more than advertisements– people tend to ignore these. But add a comment – a summary of your thoughts on that item – and it looks more personal. To add comments in My Favorites Widgets, finish adding your products, look under “Added to widget” on the right column and then click “add comments.” Type a short remark and click “save comments.”

Verify that your Amazon links work.

Finally, check your affiliate links to make sure they work and that you’ll get credit for every sale. When you log in to your Amazon affiliate account, look under “Links and Banners” at the top menu and click “Link Checker.” Now go to the page where you’ve inserted your Amazon widget. Right-click a product and copy the link. Paste the link into the Link Checker. If it is a valid Amazon affiliate link, it will say “Success.” If it says “Fail,” the link is invalid. Do this with all your Amazon links to prevent loss of revenue.

Author byline: Contributor Blog Lady at bloglady.net is an avid WordPress blogger and Internet marketer and writes about niche marketing, SEO, Facebook and various computer and technology subjects.

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5 Tips for Optimizing Amazon Affiliate Widgets is a post from: affiliate-marketer-secrets.com

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